Katy Alexander continues strong form at the Home of Golf

After playing 54 holes, battling the wind and facing up to the most unforgiving bunkers in the world, it was Scotland’s own Katy Alexander from Blairgowrie Golf Club, fresh from winning the Scottish Girls’ Amateur Championship, who finished top of the leaderboard at one under par to take the Powell Cup, a strokeplay competition for golfers with handicap of 12 or under.

The annual tournament is organised and run by the University of St Andrews Ladies Golf Club and named after Renee Powell, one of the first African American women to play on the Ladies Professional Golf Association’s (LGPA) Tour.

Also held was The Schoolgirls Championship, supported by the R&A and the Links Trust and part of the Scottish Golf Order of Merit.

Competitors play three rounds over the Eden course, Strathtyrum Course and the Jubilee Course at the St Andrews Links.

Carys Irvine from Craiglaw Golf Club won the handicap prize in this year’s competition, with Olivia Steel from Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, who came top of the stableford leader board with 122 points to take the Carol Kaufman Shield.

The second-tier competition, played as a stableford for golfers with handicap between 12.5 and 24, is played in honour of Carol Kaufman, chair of the US Women’s Open, who has supported golf at the University for many years.

Carol, who travelled from San Francisco, presented the prizes on behalf of Renee said following the competition: “I want to thank the University of St Andrews for creating this tournament and the University Ladies’ Golf Club for organising it.

“He (Renee) wanted the girls to have the same opportunity that young men have.”

Tournament organiser Jade Tsang said those competitors would find the experience invaluable. She said: “It is in these junior tournaments where lifelong friendships and unbreakable teams are formed, and one day we hope that these girls will be competing together when they represent their countries.”